It’s a wonderful and fun way to create a small but interesting garden, where one wants to spend more time looking…

Using wood and stone as well as a multitude of other materials helps create micro-climates where plants flourish.

Rustic gardens are full of texture and interest…

Places where the old and unusual take on a new life…

Like this old river stone in the shape of Gandalf’s hat!

Garden pots and more ornamental shrubs can be incorporated too…

I hope you make some of these ideas your own, for wildlife, especially Bees and insects benefit so much from rustic gardens!

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11 thoughts on “Rustic and Free…Garden Ideas”

Fantastic post. It really brings the eye down to ground level to actually SEE what is there. thanks for all the ideas and for the tip about putting new plants into isolation. I have read elsewhere that putting stones, in particular, in piles one on top of another can increase the earth energy. It is something called a power tower and works in a similar way to acupuncture. Knowing you Colette, I bet you have placed these little towers exactly where they are needed instinctively. Many thanks

Great ideas at Bealtaine….my favourite way of gardening! So many plants, including trees, seed themselves around my garden, and I save most of them in pots. Only one problem: my city garden is tiny, so I’m transplanting them into my daughter’s plot, where we’ve been digging up the grass and planting veggies and perennials instead. The bees especially love the oregano, mint, fennel and chive flowers!

Colette,
your garden is fab, pollinator friendly, garden centres are full of nice plants, but the down side is we need to be careful, plants grown in a monoculture green houses, sprayed on a routine basis, are bad for the pollinators. They also use our bogs, in abundance, to grow the plant. no compost and pee, unfortunately. There are no environmentally friendly garden centres. I am looking.

This is true and any plants I do get, and they are few and far between, go into isolation for a while, mainly I may add, to make them stronger, as the plant is heavily fertilised with chemicals when bought. As for environmentally friendly GC’s there are local growers and organic centres…here: Knockvicar, Croghan and further off, Rossinver.